INSURERS PAY CREWS TO PROTECT HOUSES

Private firefighters can cost less than paying for destroyed property

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. 
When firefighter Eric Morris shows up at wildfires across the West, locals battling the flames sometimes look at him and wonder who sent him.

The answer isn’t a public agency. It’s an insurance company.

Morris is among a group of private firefighters hired in recent years to protect homes with high-end insurance policies. In a wildfire season that is one of the busiest and most destructive ever to hit the region, authorities and residents say their help is welcome.

“There’s curiosity the first time they work with us,” he said. “After a while of explaining and making some calls to the right people, they let us right in.”

Morris and his nine-man crew helped protect 35 homes in Colorado Springs in the most destructive fire in the state’s history. It killed two people and destroyed 346 homes. There are no numbers available for how many homes these firefighters save and, given the unpredictable nature of fires, few are willing to take credit.

For insurers, hiring them is worth the cost. They spend thousands on well-equipped, federally rated firefighters, potentially saving hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars to replace a home and its contents.

“Just because you don’t have this type of policy doesn’t mean you don’t have fire protection,” Walker said. “That’s what people pay taxes for, and (public) firefighters do a wonderful job protecting homes … they saved hundreds of homes on this fire.”

C.J. Moore, who was digging through the ashes of her home in the hard hit Mountain Shadows subdivision, said she would have bought a policy with fire protection if she could afford it. She noted, however, sometimes having money isn’t enough to save your home. “The fire went through this neighborhood so fast there was no hope for these houses,” she said.

Morris works for Wildland Defense Systems of Red Lodge, Mont. It has worked alongside the federal firefighting system for years, responding to more than 80 wildfires since 2008, said Wildland president David Torgerson. The company has 50 engines and about 100 firefighters strategically located in 11 Western states, the Dakotas and Texas.

The private crews work closely with — and report to — incident commanders at the scene. Their presence means other firefighters can focus on other structures, said Greg Huele, a spokesman with the federal team in charge of the Colorado Springs fire. “We can’t be in there freelancing,” Morris said. “Everything we do is coordinated.”

Meanwhile, firefighters Thursday took advantage of a lull in searing heat and shifting winds in Wyoming and Montana on Thursday to attack wildfires that have charred thousands of acres and forced dozens of residents to flee their homes.